Monday, May 11, 2009
Two Thumbs Up
What does the phrase "a thumbs up" mean? I did some haphazard Googling, and always found it written "a thumbs up," rather than "a thumb's up." However, it seems like giving a thumbs-up means only one thumb is up, so it should be a thumb-up. My theory is it should actually be a thumb's up, using up like a noun as he "The basketball player has mad ups."
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1 comment:
its probably the phenomenon (and im sure you know the linguistic term) where people put soft sounds after awkward mouth-shapes mb --> u is not easy.
or, could it derive from "one thumb is up" contractions?
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